Showtime

What: Jersey Boys

Where: Toronto Centre for the Arts,

5040 Yonge St.

When: Now through Nov. 9

Tickets: 1-416-872-1111

When I was a kid, back in the early '60s, I danced all night to Sherry at Ancaster's Chez Amis.

Last week, almost 50 years later, I danced to it again.

This time I was at Toronto's Centre for the Arts. And it wasn't a Four Seasons record that had me boppin'.

It was Jersey Boys, the big Broadway musical that celebrates the rise to fame of four punks from New Jersey. Well, three and a half punks, I suppose.

Joined by a fresh-scrubbed cutie who just happened to write great songs, these guys cranked out one chart-burner after another.

Their personal lives didn't run quite so smoothly. Petty jealousies, broken promises, bouts of sadness and probably depression underscored the songs that made kids like me dance.

Jersey Boys, the musical, makes a decent stab at creating such dramatic excitement. Largely, though, it's the five-alarm staging by director Des McAnuff and the nostalgic feel of the music that give this Tony-winning musical its real kick in the butt.

Everything is here. From Sherry, with its falsetto swoops and dives, to the insistent wail of that female headbanger Big Girls Don't Cry. This is vintage rock and roll, the sort that makes you realize how great that really was.

Recreated by a terrific cast, Jersey Boys pays tribute to all the Four Seasons hits.

Unlike Mamma, Mia! that other big song-catalogue musical, Jersey Boys doesn't try to stuff them into a phoney narrative. Instead, the songs are performed with real dramatic context, more or less in the order Frankie and the boys recorded them.

We get a decent dramatic sense of who these guys were, as well as how they crawled their way up the professional music ladder.

All this is neatly packaged in McAnuff's fabulous staging. Set against wire fences, steel stairs and cold metal frames, the show explodes with colour as momentum begins.

Where other catalogue musicals failed miserably -- The Beach Boys and John Lennon come to mind -- Jersey Boys triumphs.

Part of the reason is the dramatic fuel of The Four Seasons' real story. Part, too, is the way McAnuff has taken Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice's version of their tale, undercutting things with honest emotion. And vintage songs, many by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, add to the heat.

Bravo to Canadian choreographer Sergio Trujillo for snappy dance numbers with flying unison feet.

Kudos, too, to Jess Goldstein's evocative costumes that bring back memories of miniskirts and sequined lapels.

Performances are uniformly crisp, with Joseph Leo Bwarie a standout dramatically and vocally as Frankie Valli.

Also great is Andrew Rannells, who suggests the sublimated rage at the heart of heartthrob Bob Gaudio.

Steve Gouveia makes a sad and disenchanted Nick Massi, and understudy Matt Bailey -- who went on for Jeremy Kushnier at the performance I caught -- sang well enough as bad boy Tommy DeVito, even if he lacked serious dramatic heft.

Jonathan Hadley has fun with the supporting role of record producer Bob Crewe, and Denise Payne is touching as Valli's estranged daughter Francine.

Mostly, though, it's Des McAnuff's hyperkinetic staging and all those terrific songs that keep Jersey Boys straining for the stratosphere.

Take it from me, it's quite a night.

Gary Smith has written on theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for more than 25 years.